Mutiny Dreams
by Master Of One
Summary: [Jack&William Chronicles]Will's never understood the bond between his father, the Black Pearl, and Jack Sparrow. And he's never understood why Jack won't discuss the mutiny. Can anything explain it? Maybe a dream will . . . [JackWilliam "Bootstrap"]R&R!


AUTHOR'S NOTES:  
  
Okay, this is my first fic so if I forget anything in the author's notes, forgive me . . .  
  
THANKS TO: First I must thank my mom, who gave me the time (and her editing skills) for writing this. Then I have to say thanks to Janey, Cassady, and Sandy, my wonderful online betas. Love you, my girls!!  
  
ARCHIVING: Ask and ye shall receive, but make sure you ask BEFORE you receive, OK? Yeah? Thanks.  
  
RANDOM: This is a oneshot. There will be more in this SERIES, but not on this story. Keep checking back, as I have 3 more in the works right now.  
  
DISCLAIMER: I own a magazine ad, a newspaper clipping, and a lot of daydreams. Sue for the shirt off my back if you want, but I'm warning you, Disney, it's a hand-me-down from my cousin.  
  
RATED FOR: Mild language, mild male/male relationship (mostly implied), moderate violence.  
  
He woke up, the moonlight slanting in over the bed.  
  
Empty bed -- and that was wrong. No, that was right...sometimes...but William should be there. No he shouldn't...should he? He shook his head slowly, trying to clear it, and was suddenly struck by a predicament: his hair was not supposed to be long and black and tangled and woven with beads. Yes it was . . . no it wasn't? He was half asleep and now he was arguing with himself. Lovely state of affairs, really. And then he heard a voice from the shadowed depths of the cabin.  
  
"Captain?" A low snicker. "Jack? Jack, are you --" May as well answer. Might make more sense to him then. William never called him Captain, but nobody else on the ship -- with the occasional exception of AnaMaria -- ever called him Jack.  
  
"I'm here . . . And that's CAPTAIN JACK, get it straight, boy." He felt as though he were split in two -- one part of him was here in bed, which made sense, at least. It was, after all, the middle of the night. But at the same time he had the strangest sensation that he was standing elsewhere in the room, watching himself.  
  
"Aye. Captain. Apologies, sir." A rich, young, full voice. Not as pleasant as William's gentle, rolling accents, but not barbaric by any means. Though he'd soon change his mind on that last bit.  
  
Barbossa stood next to the bed, knife drawn. Jack paused for some reason, as though all of time had stopped around him, as though he were dreaming. Everything seemed so slow.  
  
"Seems ye and me have some discussin' to be doing, CAPTAIN." Amazing how much scorn he could put in two syllables.  
  
"What d'you be wanting so badly, to be coming' in here at . . . "Jack squinted across the room at the grandfather clock he'd acquired from somewhere or other, he couldn't quite remember. "At two a'clock in the morning?"  
  
Barbossa grinned. "The bearings, Jaaaack." God, he hated that drawl. It always seemed to draw ghost fingers down his spine, leaving shivers up his back, and unpleasant shivers at that. Cold ones. "And the ship."  
  
Jack blinked a long, incredulous blink. "You're daft, man. That would be telling. And the Pearl is mine, as we all know."  
  
Barbossa grinned; the cold, soulless smile of a dead man. Or a condemned one. 'Here there be monsters,' ran across Jack's mind, and he wondered vaguely where he'd heard it before Barbossa spoke again.  
  
"Aye, yes, the Pearl be yours. But as I see it, Jaaaaaaack, ye have two choices. Ye can hand the Pearl and the bearin's -- and mind, they'd better be the RIGHT bearin's -- over to me now, or . . ." He hollered something Jack couldn't make out, and Bo'sun and Twigg appeared, holding tightly onto a struggling William Turner. Jack paled visibly, and Barbossa laughed. "Or I can kill your precious boy here, and THEN ye can turn over the ship and bearin's."  
  
More than the imminent and inevitable loss of the Pearl, William's look tore into his conscience, his soul . . . his heart. 'Promise me nobody will know, Jack. I have a boy at home. And a wife.'  
  
And now William thought Jack had betrayed him. He hadn't. Didn't know how they could possibly know.  
  
The crew laughed as Jack was pushed, stumbling, out of his cabin and onto the main deck. He shivered in the chill air -- no shirt to protect him from the bitter late-night breeze. But colder than that was the harsh reality of the fact that they had been waiting for this. Playing on his own trust, so they could take the ship. William was pushed into the dubious sanctuary of a space between Pintel and Ragetti. Jack remembered vaguely a joke made only a few nights ago about his one-eyed crew member. 'Ragetti couldn't find his own arse with both hands and a wench to help him,' he'd said, and William had said -- what was it? Oh, of course. 'Strange, when you consider he'd probably find the wench's arse with no trouble at all.'  
  
He almost laughed before someone's fist slammed into his back, throwing him to the deck. He was a small man. They'd kill him, no doubt, and then what would happen to William and AnaMaria? Neither of them would have anything to do with this, he was sure. And for that matter, where WAS AnaMaria? He looked around wildly before spotting her, struggling against a headlock. Barbossa grabbed his shoulders and pulled him up and around so they faced each other.  
  
"The bearin's, Jaaaaaaaack." Jack opened his mouth to speak, hesitated momentarily, and was rewarded with another fist, this one to his face. Of course they'd take this opportunity to abuse him, get whatever revenge it was they felt was their due -- while he was half asleep -- though he'd always woken up easily, he was dazed by the fast moving events and the idea that the crew would actually MUTINY. William had always said he was too innocent for his own good. Appeared he was right, Jack thought bitterly. Jack was a believer in too many second chances, too many people who "just had a moment of stupidity" instead of the possibility that it wasn't stupidity but a deliberate act.  
  
William pulled away from Ragetti, who had been holding him still for Pintel to mistreat, and staggered forward a few paces.  
  
"Leave him alone!" Jack heard a gunshot, and William let out a cry, dropping his hand to his leg. Bastard. He'd kill the man who shot that musket ball with his bare hands if he had the chance. Pintel -- always the brains in that pair, though he barely had enough to spare for himself -- reached out and yanked William backward by the waist, slapping him soundly across the face. Jack steadied his legs, ready to beat the jaundice-eyed traitor until he was bloody. But before Jack could even catch his breath, the blows began.  
  
Twenty long, blurred, aching minutes later, as Jack tried to stand, Barbossa towering over him, he finally managed to get a word in.  
  
"Don't have them."  
  
Barbossa roared. "YOU LIE!"  
  
Jack shook his head. No, he didn't lie. He'd written them down, and he made a gesture to indicate such. Was always such a blessing to be able to read and write, he thought absently, more to distract himself from the pain in his back and legs and head more than anything else. "WHERE ARE THEY?"  
  
Jack motioned toward his cabin. In his shirt, of course. Where else would he put them? He always carried everything with him. For this information he received the reward of being jerked up again, this time by his hair, and thrown into the side of the ship. Jack had never been known for having a particularly strong stomach -- William often teased him good-naturedly about his early shipboard days. Having already been pummeled by various crew members, it couldn't take the final slam and emptied of its own accord. Jack was certain there couldn't be any taste nastier than an emptied stomach mixed with blood. He was wrong. Barbossa seemed to have some amazing talent for causing pain, and now he was being yanked upward -- again -- this time by his elbows, wrenching his shoulders back, and he couldn't help it anymore. He screamed.  
  
"Poor Jaaack." The crew -- HIS crew -- laughed. "We'll fix you up."  
  
As Barbossa's lips touched his face he pulled away, several new flavors now mixing unpleasantly in his mouth. Old apples. Ashes. The unmistakable invisible black flavor of death -- not death, lack of a soul would work better there. And rum. He gagged. Having not yet developed a taste for the pirate's drink of choice -- in fact he still preferred milk, though only William knew that -- the very smell of it nauseated him. He probably would have vomited again if he'd had anything left in him.  
  
Barbossa stalked off toward Jack's former cabin -- the Pearl wasn't his anymore, he realized with an inward cry -- for the bearings, and William was finally released by Pintel and Ragetti, who immediately got into some argument with AnaMaria's captor, leaving her free to worm away as well. William offered him some water, quietly, not wanting to attract the attentions of the crew. Jack immediately spit it back up, wanting only to rid his mouth of the awful taste of losing a ship. And though his actions were kind, William still wore that betrayed look.  
  
"I didn't tell them, William, I swear I didn't tell them . . . " He worked hard to keep the tears inside. Lost a ship. Lost William's trust. He knew under normal circumstances which would hurt the worst. But then again, under normal circumstances he wouldn't have lost either.  
  
"I'll get back to Tortuga, Jack, get word out for you. Get them out of the trade circles and such. And I won't take a single coin of their double- damned treasure," AnaMaria whispered, and there was no time for more. Barbossa pulled William up, and shoved AnaMaria away.  
  
"Oh, no, he didn't tell us, WILLIAM." There was that awful sarcasm again. How long had he been standing there? "It's just so . . . convenient when you have your discussions behind locked doors with the window open." Jack cussed at himself silently, and then saw the dark shape on the near horizon that spoke of land. "Oh, yes, Jaaaaack, that's where you're going."  
  
Jack stood on the beach of the uninhabited isle, looking as Barbossa sailed away with his ship. And AnaMaria . . . and his William. The only ones who really cared what happened to him, whether he lived or died. And then he did something he hadn't done for years: Jack Sparrow, former captain of the Black Pearl, sat down on the sand and cried.  
  
Will Turner awoke from the nightmare with a start.  
  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------------  
  
Will worked his way on to the deck, legs shaking. He'd often heard members of the crew talking about the mutiny, arguing over how exactly it had happened. He'd never heard AnaMaria take part in those discussions, except to stick up for the claim that Jack had fought a fierce battle over it. Well, that was expected. She was Jack's close friend if nothing else.  
  
And Will had known that Jack had been far closer to Will's father than he'd ever admitted directly. But what Will hadn't known was how directly his father had figured in the mutiny. He was certain he'd dreamed it. He hadn't just dreamed it. He'd been Jack. He'd felt the cold steel of suddenly missing entrails as he'd seen his own father -- and Will probably wouldn't even have recognized him if he'd ever met him on the street -- slammed about the deck of the Pearl. And so now he was looking for Jack.  
  
Jack was standing at the helm. He'd admitted to Will that when he couldn't sleep he took over for whoever had been unlucky enough to draw night watch. Most didn't enjoy it. Jack, however, reveled in the hours between dark and dawn. Will had the feeling that he knew why.  
  
"Jack?" Jack turned with a start of his own, drawing a knife from his belt. He'd learned a few lessons from that night when . . . no, he wouldn't think about that. Bad enough as it was, keeping him awake nights more often now than ever. Realizing it was Will he'd pulled his dagger on, he turned back to the wheel, putting it away.  
  
"What's ailing' you this hour of the early morn, William Turner?" Will stared. Jack had never, since that first day when Will'd sprung Jack out of the Port Royale prison, addressed him by his full name.  
  
"Nightmares, I guess. Memory nightmares."  
  
Jack sighed a long, full sigh and nodded sagely. "Old demons, eh? . . . we all have them."  
  
Will sat down on the deck. "But we don't all have yours, Jack."  
  
Jack slipped the rope over the rudder and sat down next to his second mate. "What's that supposed to mean, boy?"  
  
Will didn't know quite what to say. How could he put into words what he'd seen though Jack's eyes? He wondered vaguely if Jack was awake because of the same dream, if perhaps he'd sent it to Will. No, that was ludicrous. But when at last he was able to say something, he banked upon the possibility that maybe, just maybe, they had had the same dream. And Jack seemed to know what he meant. "I'm sorry."  
  
Jack shrugged. "It's in the past, Will. Nothing to be done about it now. And I suppose you know what your father said to 'im, what finally did 'im in. Sorry it did 'im that way, but good to know he still cared . . . believed me. Still believed IN me."  
  
Will shook his head. "What did he say?"  
  
Jack stood back up to the wheel. "He 'n Barbossa got into an argument over that coin you were sent, 'n 'as master of the Black Pearl' Barbossa ordered him to get it back. Your father told 'im he'd never be master of the Black Pearl because, and this is what AnaMaria swears he said exactly, 'you'll never be half the man Jack Sparrow is.' Now boy, that ought to tell you something about your father. He was the sort who stood up for what he believed in." Jack stared out over the water. Will could see the stars, bright above the ship and the ocean, and he was certain for some reason it was to the stars that Jack spoke next . . . if he wasn't speaking to himself. "Good to know he still believed in me after that. It's a great thing, after all, to have someone who believes in you. And good to have someone who loves you. Now --" Will grinned to himself. Jack was working himself up to one of his great, rambling speeches that seemed to lose its thread after awhile. "William was a great man. Didn't have much education- wise, but he knew a lot about love. And demons. And how to get rid of them."  
  
Will stood up, leaning on the rail overlooking the dark waters. He knew Jack had forgotten he was there at all. And he knew just as well that if Jack ever asked him what he remembered of what had been said, he'd say he couldn't remember it at all. He'd leave the man with his pride. Jack had spoken once of talking to "Only the stars, the Pearl and the ocean. Best audience in the world when you need to sort your thoughts."  
  
Jack suddenly came back to Earth so abruptly that Will was surprised it didn't make a loud crashing noise, perhaps like that of china on a hearth. He was less surprised, though, when Jack looked right at him with one of those probing looks that seemed to see right through Will's head and into his soul. And he wasn't at all surprised when Jack addressed his final point to neither the stars, nor the Pearl, nor the ocean, though he did have to wonder -- was Jack speaking to himself, Will, or to a memory of his father? It didn't change one thing, though. The point was true. "Sometimes you have to face your demons in mutiny dreams." 


End file.
